Ohio’s casinos and racinos did record business in 2019 despite the state’s top performer suffering a year-on-year decline.
Figures released this week by the Ohio Casino Control Commission – which oversees the state’s four brick-and-mortar casinos – and the Ohio Lottery Commission – which oversees video lottery terminal operations at seven racetracks – show statewide gaming revenue of around $1.95b in 2019, a 4.2% rise over 2018’s total.
The figures don’t include the track’s race betting revenue or proceeds from any non-gaming activity at any licensed Ohio operation. The state’s share of this bounty amounted to around $650m.
The four casinos reported revenue up 1.6% year-on-year to $851m, of which slots accounted for $580.23m while table games brought in the remaining $270.75m. The casinos figures got a boost from December’s total revenue of $74.4m, second only to the $81.1m recorded in the month of March.
The seven racinos brought in a combined $1.1b in VLT revenue, a 6.2% improvement over 2018. December was equally kind to the racinos’ VLT operations, posting the third largest monthly revenue total in 2019.
MGM Resorts’ Northfield Park (formerly Hard Rock Rocksino) led the gaming revenue derby with $253.6m, down less than 1% from 2018. The state’s four casinos occupied the rest of the top-five, led by Hollywood Casino Columbus in second with $229.2m, followed by JACK Cleveland ($212.1m), Jack Cincinnati ($202.7m) and Hollywood Casino Toledo ($202m).
Ohio has yet to join the growing number of states that have authorized legal sports betting within their borders, but hopes are high that progress will be made on this front in 2020. The legislature is currently mulling two separate wagering bills, with the principal differences between the two being which of the state’s regulatory bodies gets to oversee betting activity and how much tax betting licensees would kick back to the state.
